Richard George wrote:For months many have wondered when we'd see Disney and Marvel start to work together. While we've seen Marvel merch start to show up at Disney theme parks, an announcement from Marvel Comics today elevates the collaboration and corporate synergy one step further. Pixar is taking a stab at the Golden Avenger.

Jamie Williams wrote:So what's the big news? Apparently, there is nothing short of a tug of war going on between Disney and Paramount over the properties Par had already lined up and contractually committed to distribute with Marvel. Sadly, it appears that the Mouse may have found a loophole.

How certain are we of this? Certain Disney publicists have already been telling members of the press that Iron Man 3 will definitely be distributed and branded with the Walt Disney logo. Ask the lawyers for details.

NIKKI FINKE AND MIKE FLEMING wrote:The Walt Disney Studios deal to buy Paramount Pictures out of the final two films of its six-picture distribution deal with Marvel Studios amounts to the Mouse paying a premium to get cracking on its $4 billion investment in Marvel. When you break down the numbers, it's a pretty good deal for both studios. Paramount had been earning an 8% distribution fee on the Marvel titles like Iron Man. Paramount also put up P&A and got reimbursed over time. The $115 million will be paid in two installments--half when The Avengers is released May 4, 2012, and the other half when Iron Man 3 is released May 3, 2013. If those movies perform more strongly than expected, Paramount will earn more than $115 million advance. I'm told that Paramount is actually getting 9% on that third Iron Man movie, a reward for launching one of Hollywood's most valuable franchises. So essentially, Paramount is getting paid without having to put up the P&A or exert the manpower that goes into releasing summer blockbusters.

NIKKI FINKE wrote:Everybody is trying to keep this secret. But I’ve learned that yesterday Disney canned Dana Precious, EVP of Worldwide Marketing for Marvel’s LA Studios (she had replaced Doug Finberg at the end of last summer); Jeffrey Stewart, VP of Worldwide Marketing (he’d been brought in by Dana); and Jodi Miller, Manager of Worldwide Marketing. That’s essentially Marvel’s entire marketing department. Marvel redundant jobs were on the line ever since Disney bought the publisher/studio in 2009. And the marketing department even more so this summer after Paramount released Thor and Captain America domestically and internationally, thus effectively ending that studio’s marketing and distribution of Marvel pictures. I’m told that on June 24th, Rob Steffens, who is Marvel Studios’ EVP Operations, met with all of the department at the Manhattan Beach offices in what was described as a “Disney Rules of the Road” meeting. He told staff that there would be no house-cleaning by the mouse, period, so they were not to fear for their jobs and flee en masse. So much for that promise.

The official line on why Marvel’s marketing team was let go is that Disney will be taking over that function and handling the releases of The Avengers and future Marvel movies themselves. In fact I’ve learned that Marvel will bring in someone in a “project management role”. But Kevin Feige’s continued supervision of all things Marvel should resolve any doubts by fanboys that Disney will screw around or screw up the comic book films. Insiders tell me that Precious and her team were not well-loved by Marvel bigwig Feige and other top execs at Marvel or by Disney and Paramount. (Some of the comments I heard today included: “Not up to or have the skill set to release this brand properly”… “Their job was to keep track of the people doing the real work”… “Paper pushers”… ”Would it have killed them to return an email?”… “Disney doesn’t need someone to cut its trailers”…)

Now Marvel staffers wonder whether the firings were really to avoid duplicating efforts with Disney or just petty vindictiveness. If it’s the latter, then jobs are safe. But if it’s the former, then any jobs redundant in terms of Disney’s infrastructure aren’t. Trying to reassure the Marvel folks, one insider tells me today, “If you do your job and are smart and understand the business, you shouldn’t worry.”

We will see how it ends up shaking out. But Remender and Cassaday on Uncanny Avengers has promise. And I am simply ecstatic that Hickman is on Avengers. But Bendis on X-Men involving time-travel? I can't accurately describe my displeasure with that news.

Brian Truitt wrote:He may not be as well-known as the Joker or Green Goblin, but few comic-book supervillains have the "it factor" of big, bad cosmic dude Thanos.

First appearing in an issue of Iron Man in 1973, the smirking, purple-skinned powerhouse popped up in May in a post-credits scene in the box-office behemoth The Avengers, teasing to his possible roles in an Avengers sequel or other Marvel Studios movies.

Marvel Comics is thinking along the same lines: In October, Thanos: Son of Titan makes its debut as a five-issue miniseries that reveals the origin of this major galactic threat to civilization. (Thanos is also the foil to Captain America, Iron Man and Thor in Marvel's Avengers Assemble series.)

"It is about how Thanos came to be," says Joe Keatinge, 30, the up-and-coming writer who teams with British artist Richard Elson on Son of Titan. "I don't go Forrest Gump on it, but aspects of the Marvel Universe have been born that directly turn Thanos into who he is."

Associate editor Sana Amanat calls Thanos the definitive Marvel villain. "He's our Darth Vader, our Sauron, with a wonderfully massive and abrasive ego. Heroes have yet to figure out what his weakness is, and because of that, the journey to his destruction — or maybe redemption? — will be the stuff that epic stories are made of."

Son of Titan starts Thanos off young, even before the events of the first Marvel Universe comic, 1961's Fantastic Four No. 1, and before he sided with the intergalactic female version of Death. Keatinge was a youngster collecting Dr. Doom action figures and watching 1960s Spider-Man cartoons when he became enamored with Thanos after reading the 1991 event series The Infinity Gauntlet by Thanos' creator, Jim Starlin.

"At the time, I was just like, 'Oh, I need to know everything about him that I could.' To me, it's cool to finally get into that head space from when I was a kid and explore that as a writer," Keatinge says.

"He ends up at the point where he's worshiping Death and destroying universes. How do you get to that head space where you're like, 'This is what I want to do with the rest of my life?' "

It was actually a match made in the Twitter-verse that paired Keatinge with the outer-space baddie. Marvel editor Stephen Wacker reached out on social media to compliment him on his Image Comics series Glory, and a few e-mails and calls later Wacker offered him the series.

"My sniff was he was a guy who knows Marvel comics and the big ideas behind action stories," Wacker says.

Keatinge recalls seeing the Avengers scene with Thanos on the film's opening weekend in a packed theater, and he says everyone — including him — was wowed by the surprise cameo.

"You don't know anything about this guy," he says of Thanos' appeal. "He just looks cool."

For Wacker, Thanos is a throwback to the Marvel storytelling of 50 years ago, when there was a certain lack of nuance between heroes and villains and "bad guys twirled their mustaches," he says.

"He's just an evil guy. He wants to rule over things. He wants power. It's just so over the top and operatic — it's as if Shakespeare wrote an opera."

This is probably one of the first concept drawings of Thanos I ever did, long before I started working at Marvel. Jack Kirby’s Metron is clearly the more dominant influence in this character’s look. Not Darkseid. Both D and T started off much smaller than they eventually became. This was one of the drawings I had in my portfolio when I was hired by Marvel. It was later inked by Rich Buckler.

Legal Eagles, does this mean that Starlin has a claim to ownership (or part-ownership) of the character? He clearly wasn’t created as work for hire. And if so, what could this mean for Marvel’s future plans for the character within Avengers movies and the comic Marvel Universe…?

On featured characters in Marvel NOW! Wave Two: We picked every character in there because they are characters to watch in the coming year. Just like last year when we were unveiling the Marvel NOW! Joe Quesada image and you were seeing characters -- the Guardians of the Galaxy, you were seeing the new Spider-Man, you were seeing Nova, and we were promising they would be characters to watch. We're saying the same thing with characters like the Black Widow, the Silver Surfer right now. How this will come to pass, I'm not going to say more. That's for future announcements, but they're all chosen for a reason. They're all going to get their moment in the spotlight.

Drew McWeeny wrote:On the surface, it would be a strange choice for Marvel to make an "Inhumans" movie. After all, they've already got one superhero team franchise up and running with "The Avengers," and they're gambling right now that "Guardians Of The Galaxy" will not only work as a team, but that it will help them establish the larger, stranger cosmic side of Marvel on film. So why would a book full of lesser-known characters like "Inhumans" become a priority for the studio?

In the original comic series, created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, there was one group of prehistoric humans who were genetically modified by the Kree as an evolutionary experiment. Since then, anyone descended from those original proto-humans is predisposed to a certain strain of superpowers. Right now, Marvel is gearing up for another of their company-wide crossover events, focused on the Inhumans, in which they plan to reveal that there were way more people descended from the original Inhumans than originally believed. In doing this, Marvel gives themselves room to essentially reinvent the idea of mutants in their comic universe.

Why would this matter to Marvel Studios? Well, one of the few outstanding deals in place that seems to be frustrating them at this point is 20th Century Fox's ownership of all things related to "X-Men," including the word "mutant." While that deal doesn't look to be ending any time soon (Fox can keep making films as long as they want under the current terms), this big event, written by uber-smart Jonathan Hickman, which leads to a new regular book next year called "Inhuman," written by the equally uber-smart Matt Fraction, could allow Marvel to simply shut Fox out altogether. Bill Rosemann, one of the editors at Marvel, explained it like this on Marvel.com earlier this year: "Imagine if one day you realize everything you know about yourself is wrong and, oh yeah, you have spike sprouting up out all over your body and your hands spray acid. It's up to the students of the Avengers Academy and the Jean Grey School to save these young adults before they destroy everything around them."

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. If it works, and if Marvel Studios finds themselves able to finally make the movies they'd like to make with the characters they'd like to use without ever once saying the word "mutant," it's more than just a canny creative work-around. It's also a pretty clear indication that coordination between the comics and the movies could pay off in all new ways, and I'd be shocked if it didn't lead to more situations like that. Right now, the movie universe and the comic universe feel very different, but that could certainly change, and it wouldn't shock me if this becomes a test case for both sides to study as they make decisions about their future.

Matt D. Wilson wrote:With the debut this month of newly ranked Captain Marvel Carol Danvers, Marvel has officially published stories featuring seven — count ‘em, seven – versions of the character, and that’s not even counting any of the various alternate-universe incarnations. Why so many iterations? Well, basically, Marvel will lose its trademark on the name “Captain Marvel” if the company doesn’t publish a comic with that title every few years. But even then, why couldn’t they trot out the same version of the character every odd-numbered year or something? Because since the death of the original Captain Marvel in 1982, Marvel hasn’t had a Captain Marvel with staying power.

Axel Alonso wrote:Turning to comics, let's start with a book released this week, a little bit of a different one for Marvel: "Figment" #1. Marvel has been select about the Disney-centric material its published since the 2009 acquisition -- what made "Figment" the right fit?

Alonso: What we pick for our Disney Kingdoms imprint starts with a discussion between us and our friends at Walt Disney Imagineering. There's a small team on our side -- including (Publisher) Dan Buckley, (Marvel Custom Solutions Creative Director) Bill Rosemann, (SVP of Print & Digital Publishing Sales) David Gabriel, who's a huge Disney fan, and myself -- that looks at available properties. We chat, we see what we think will translate best from a live attraction at one of their theme parks to our medium. Some attractions, for various reasons, are currently unavailable, and certain things -- because of their genre or the characters involved -- translate better than others.

Bill, who edits many of our third party titles -- like "Empire of the Dead," "Dexter," and "The Dark Tower" -- takes the lead on that in terms of nailing down the story and creative team. In this case, he leaned into a steampunk look through Filipe Andrade and Jean-Francois Beaulieu's amazing art.

"Seekers of the Weird" and "Figment" are two more examples of the amazing synergy between Disney and Marvel that I hope will pave the road to "Deadpool vs. Goofy."

You've been championing that for years now! But given the presence of Disney at Marvel increasing a little bit, is that something you'd personally like to see more of? Do you see an opportunity to do more with Disney characters at Marvel Comics?

Alonso: I'd welcome it. I've got an amazing staff of editors and creators who'd be up for the challenge. What we're doing with "Star Wars" right now proves the magic we can do when we're given the chance to bring great characters to the comic book page. Expanding our publishing plan to include other genres, over universes, is always exciting.

Earlier this year children’s horror legend R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame was revealed to have a mystery Marvel Comics project in the pipeline, and speculation was rife as to which of the many iconic horror characters in the publisher’s roster it could be. Today, Stine has revealed that he will helm a five issue Man-Thing miniseries with art by German Peralta, Daniel Johnson and Rachelle Rosenberg.

Announced today via The New York Times, Man-Thing sees the character journeying to Hollywood to find out why the entertainment industry hasn’t latched onto him the same way they have with the likes of The Avengers. According to Stine, his interpretation of Man-Thing will be rather sarcastic, which goes against most portrayals of the monster as mute, although Jeff Parker, Kev Walker and Declan Shalvey‘s Thunderbolts featured a Man-Thing that could talk.

Covers for the miniseries are provided by Harrow County‘s Tyler Crook. The overall aesthetic of the title is said to be inspired by classic EC Comics horror titles such as Tales From The Crypt, but the series will also feature the requisite action and comedy found in R.L Stine’s most famous works. Each issue will also feature back-up horror stories written by Stine, illustrated by a different guest artist each month.

The new Man-Thing series will launch in March 2017. Check out the profile at The New York Times for more information about Stine’s history with comics and approach to the title.

Graeme McMillan wrote:This fall, Marvel Entertainment is going back to its comic book roots.

The company announced Marvel Legacy during Saturday's Marvel: Next Big Thing panel at the C2E2 comic convention in Chicago — a relaunch of its superhero comic book line that will refocus on its long history and most iconic characters.

The fall relaunch will follow the conclusion of the current Secret Empire storyline — in which Hydra, as led by a corrupted Captain America, has taken over the United States — and see a renewed focus on "hope, wonder, enjoyment and fun," according to the publisher. It also will see a number of changes for the comics themselves, including a restoration of "legacy numbering" on long-running series — which is to say, an issue number that will reflect the overall cumulative number of issues published, as opposed to the number in that particular volume. For example, Captain America: Steve Rogers would jump from somewhere in the early 20s to an issue number closer to 690. There will also be a new consistent cover design across the line reminiscent of Marvel's 1980s and '90s output.

Some of the retro moves Marvel is planning go back even further, with the return of both the Marvel Value Stamp — a collectable clip-and-save program from the mid-1970s and F.O.O.M., a self-published Marvel fanzine from the same era (The title is an acronym for "Friends Of Ol' Marvel"), reportedly underway.

"The Marvel Legacy initiative is a celebration of everything that makes Marvel the best in fiction and it’s a signifier of a new era for Marvel Comics," Marvel CCO Joe Quesada said in a statement. "It’s a loving look at the heart of Marvel as we embrace our roots and move enthusiastically forward with all the Marvel characters you know and love starring in the biggest, boldest, best Marvel stories. All of which kicks off with the giant Marvel Legacy special."

The Marvel Legacy special will be a 50-page comic book by The Mighty Thor and Doctor Strange writer Jason Aaron and Secret Wars artist Esad Ribic that will set up the new status quo for the comic book universe, and return a fan-favorite character into active service — although, of course, Marvel isn't revealing just who right now. The issue is scheduled for a fall release, although no official date was revealed just yet; the cover for the issue will come from Joe Quesada himself.

More information about Marvel Legacy — including the complete line-up of titles and attached creators — will be released in coming months.

Graeme McMillan wrote:2017 has been a bad year for Marvel Entertainment’s comic book division. It’s not simply that sales have tumbled (the company’s traditional dominance in year-end sales charts is absent this year), but that Marvel’s comic book publishing arm has suffered through a year of PR disasters so unforgiving as to make it appear as if the division has become cursed somehow. Here’s how bad things have been over the last twelve months.

January

The year started with the publisher announcing a new digital policy intended to increase sales of its print releases: Each week’s issues would contain download codes for three selected issues of other comics. The move prompted outcry from comic book retailers and fans alike as it replaces a longstanding policy where issues contained codes for a digital edition of that release, with both parties asking Marvel to reconsider. Two months later, Marvel did, with a statement from SVP of Sales and Marketing David Gabriel saying, in part, “We heard the message loud and clear on digital same issue codes… We are always looking to do what’s best for fans and the comics industry.”

March

A report from comic book industry site ICv2 caused a stir, when then-Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso was accused of devaluing the contribution of artists during a presentation to retailers, saying “We can hype our artists all we want, but I don’t know if we know how many artists, besides maybe [Steve] McNiven and [Olivier] Coipel, absolutely move the [sales] needle on anything to be drawn.”

An interview with SVP sales David Gabriel, published on the same day as the previous report, provoked an even greater reaction after it appeared to show the exec complaining about characters’ diversity in Marvel’s output. “What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity,” he said. “They didn't want female characters out there. That's what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales. We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.”

Response was so vehement that Gabriel was forced to release a statement clarifying his comments. “Discussed candidly by some of the retailers at the summit, we heard that some were not happy with the false abandonment of the core Marvel heroes and, contrary to what some said about characters ‘not working,’ the sticking factor and popularity for a majority of these new titles and characters like Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, The Mighty Thor, Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, and Moon Girl, continue to prove that our fans and retailers ARE excited about these new heroes,” the statement read. “And let me be clear, our new heroes are not going anywhere! We are proud and excited to keep introducing unique characters that reflect new voices and new experiences into the Marvel Universe and pair them with our iconic heroes.”

April

The much-hyped relaunch of the X-Men franchise was immediately derailed by controversy when readers noticed that Indonesian penciler Ardian Syaf had hidden political references into the artwork for the debut issue of X-Men: Gold, the lead book of the franchise. “These implied references do not reflect the views of the writer, editors or anyone else at Marvel and are in direct opposition of the inclusiveness of Marvel Comics and what the X-Men have stood for since their creation,” Marvel said in a statement on the matter. Syaf was fired by Marvel days later.

May

Faced with growing criticism over a plot line in which Captain America’s history had been rewritten so that he was — and “had always been,” as per the rewritten history — an agent of fascist terrorist organization Hydra, Marvel took the unusual step of releasing a statement asking for readers’ patience and faith ahead of the launch of Secret Empire, a series which brought the storyline to the forefront of the company’s publishing line.

“At Marvel, we want to assure all of our fans that we hear your concerns about aligning Captain America with Hydra and we politely ask you to allow the story to unfold before coming to any conclusion,” the statement, released to Disney sibling ABC News, read. “What you will see at the end of this journey is that his heart and soul -- his core values, not his muscle or his shield -- are what save the day against Hydra and will further prove that our heroes will always stand against oppression and show that good will always triumph over evil.”

The finale of the series would see the fascist Captain America beaten up by a magically-created non-fascist version, using his muscles and his shield, but we’ll get there soon enough.

June

After an April tease, Marvel announced the launch slate for Marvel Legacy, the fall relaunch of its entire superhero line. The announcement was unusual, to say the least, with the series being revealed via animated gifs released with varying amounts of information across multiple websites, as well as Twitter and emails from Marvel’s PR department. More confusingly, the launch line-up as announced in June turned out to be incomplete, with Captain America being added a month later.

Despite a press release that promised the relaunch would “change the comic book industry,” response to the announcement was muted to say the least, with many noting that the relaunch was cosmetic at best — the majority of series were continuing publication, with the same creators attached — and also surprisingly backwards looking in its attempts to evoke nostalgia for days gone by.

The fact that one of the Legacy gimmicks involved renumbering certain series using math that didn’t really make sense didn’t help matters, either.

August

After Marvel announced order terms for the first issues of its Marvel Legacy relaunch, a number of comic book retailers announced that they wouldn’t be carrying certain releases in protest over what they considered unrealistic expectations from the publisher.

September

As the Secret Empire comic book series neared its conclusion, Marvel inexplicably spoiled the end of its own Secret Empire comic book series days before release via a New York Times story. Featuring artwork that showed the fascist version of Captain America being beaten up by the classic version, the story featured then-editor-in-chief Alonso saying that Marvel editorial “thought the story had something important to say about democracy, freedom and the core American values that Captain American embodies.” The NYT didn’t seem to be too impressed; the opening line of the story began, “Surprising absolutely no-one…”

This wouldn’t be the only time Marvel would spoil its own comic books that month, though; days ahead of the release of Marvel Legacy No. 1, the company announced the identity of the character who would return from the dead in the issue. (It was Wolverine, who had died in 2014.)

October

Marvel’s October started terribly, with a week which saw everyone discover that the special lenticular covers that had drawn criticism from retailers didn’t even work, as well as a presentation to retailers turn into a full-scale revolt, and finally, a deal with military contractor Northrop Grumman get pulled within 24 hours of its announcement because of backlash from fans and Marvel’s own creators. That this happened to be the same week as New York Comic Con was just unfortunate timing, really.

November

In a surprise move, top Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis left the publisher after nearly two decades to sign with DC Entertainment. That was far from the biggest departure from the company that month, however; within two weeks, news broke that Alonso was stepping down immediately as editor-in-chief in what was described as a “mutual decision” between himself and Marvel.

His replacement was C.B. Cebulski, a former writer and editor for the company, who — just eleven days after being named to the position — admitted that he had defrauded the company a decade earlier by pretending to be a Japanese writer called Akira Yoshida from 2003 through 2005, during which time he worked as a freelancer on Marvel comics while also, under his own name, working on staff as an editor for the company. Beyond his initial confession, Cebulski issued an additional statement on the subject to The Atlantic this month, but Marvel has yet to officially comment on the matter.

In other personnel news in November, it was revealed that Marvel had hired former Image Comics staffer Ron Richards as its VP/Managing Editor of New Media. His hiring was greeted by multiple accusations of sexual harassment. Neither the company nor Richards have responded to the allegations as yet.

December

As excitement grows for Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War, the man who created the movie's central villain, Thanos broke up with Marvel's comic book arm. Jim Starlin aired his grievances on Facebook, naming Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort as the reason he wouldn't be working with the publisher anymore, but helpfully adding that it was only the comic book division he had a problem with. Marvel Studios, he explained, "has treated me very well and generously. Them I like."

Meanwhile, the solicitations for Marvel’s March 2018 releases signals the cancelations of a number of comic series, including Gwenpool, Luke Cage, America, Generation X, Hawkeye, She-Hulk and Iceman. As has become customary, Marvel as a company has yet to comment officially on the cancelations — and declines to comment when specifically asked about them — with confirmations coming directly from the creators behind the comics on social media.

That the majority of series confirmed to be ending feature female leads or men of color didn’t escape the notice of many fans, with discussion of a boycott of the publisher soon following. This led to the unusual sight of a Marvel editor asking fans not to stop buying Marvel titles on social media:

Jordan D. White wrote:@cracksh0tI understand being upset about comics being cancelled--trust me, those of us working on those comics are likely AT LEAST as upset as you are, probably more upset. But that being said... please reconsider a knee-jerk "boycott".

Going into 2018, Marvel faces significant challenges, from reversing sales slides to convincing disillusioned fans that the company remains committed to diversity. New editor-in-chief Cebulski has yet to give an official interview as the new leader of the comic book line, nor answer direct questions about his time as Akira Yoshida — and if the company could stop spoiling its own comics days before their release, that would probably be a good idea, as well. It’s a super heroic task — but then, that almost makes it perfect for Marvel to handle.